Loss aversion predicts cigarette smoking status across levels of sociodemographic characteristics.

Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, Vol 32(2), Apr 2024, 189-196; doi:10.1037/pha0000665Loss aversion (LA) is a tendency to be more sensitive to potential losses relative to similar gains. Low LA is associated with increased risk for cigarette smoking and use of other substances. Previous studies of LA and smoking risk controlled for potentially confounding influences of sociodemographic characteristics associated with smoking risk. The present study replicates these earlier observations while also examining the generality of the association between low LA and smoking risk within different levels of each of the five sociodemographic risk factors for smoking (age, educational attainment, gender, income, race/ethnicity). Parallel analyses were conducted using delay discounting (DD) as a positive control; DD is a decision-making bias regarding the rate at which rewards lose value with increasing delay to receipt. Participants were recruited using standard crowdsourcing methods and completed a sociodemographics questionnaire, a hypothetical gamble task measure of LA, and a monetary choice measure of DD. Low LA was associated with increased risk of cigarette smoking after accounting for the influence of sociodemographic characteristics and DD. Similarly, high DD was associated with increased risk of cigarette smoking after accounting for the influence of sociodemographic characteristics and LA. Further analyses showed that associations of LA with smoking risk or DD with ...
Source: Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research